2014 began on a favourable note for the x86 server market because of the positive sentiments in the market. According to International Data Corporation (IDC) Server Market in India grew by 9% in terms of unit shipments quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2014 as against Q4 2013 . This growth is primarily due to the growth in server unit shipments in Banking and Government Sector. Server market in Non-x86 segment saw a sharp decline of 45% in revenue in Q1 2014 as compared to Q4 2013 as large Banks and Telecommunication companies held back their investments towards the long pending refresh of their core infrastructure due to uncertain political scenario in the country.

According to Janmaijai Dhyani, Market Analyst, Enterprise Computing – Servers, "Large deals in Banking (driven by both refresh and upgrades) and Government (particularly state owned departments) are leading to investment in technology advancement and are key to the growth in Q1 2014. Cooperative banks and universities are also investing in technology and are aggressively upgrading their IT infrastructure."

According to Gaurav Sharma, Research Manager – Enterprise (India), “Aggressive sales and marketing strategies, new alliances and advancements in technology coupled with rising adoption of 3rd platform will drive growth for the server market in India. Rise of domestic demand, in the form of SMBs, will back the enterprise spending to sail growth numbers for this market in the coming quarters.”

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In India x86 market, HP continued to lead in Q1 2014 with a revenue share of 36%, followed by Dell with a share of 22%. HP grew by 26% and Dell by 36% respectively in terms of units (Q1 2014 as compared to Q4 2013).This growth was a result of large investments by Banks and Communications & Media verticals. They were followed by IBM with a market share of 16% which is facing a challenging time in the market due to its x86 business being brought over by Lenovo.

IDC India Forecast

Server market in India is expected to grow, especially in the latter half of the year signalling the effect of positive policies and business sentiments. Banking, Telecom & Government sectors are expected to be key to this growth while the ever increasing SMB segment and verticals like Healthcare & e-commerce would provide the necessary incremental growth to the market.

Note: All comparisons, quotes and numbers on shipments above are calculated in customer revenue; all % are rounded off to the nearest digit